A video game clone is either a video game (or series) which is very similar to or heavily inspired by a previous popular game or series. It also applies to a third-party remake of a video game console.
The term is sometimes derogatory, implying a lack of originality, however clones can be anything from a pure "ripoff", to a legitimate derivative or improvement on the original or even a homage.
Cloning a game in digital marketplaces is common, because it is hard to prevent and easy to compete with existing games. Developers can copyright the graphics, title, story, and characters, but they cannot easily protect software design and game mechanics. A patent for the mechanics is possible, but acquiring one is expensive and time-consuming.
Read more about Video Game Clone: Video Game Consoles
Famous quotes containing the words video game, video, game and/or clone:
“It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today’s children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)
“The most disgusting cad in the world is the man who, on grounds of decorum and morality, avoids the game of love. He is one who puts his own ease and security above the most laudable of philanthropies.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“Women of my age in America are at the mercy of two powerful and antagonistic traditions. The first is the ultradomestic fifties with its powerful cult of motherhood; the other is the strident feminism of the seventies with its attempt to clone the male competitive model.... Only in America are these ideologies pushed to extremes.”
—Sylvia Ann Hewitt (20th century)